Today I’d like to talk to you about the deliverance ministry. This is such a complex subject that this is only an introduction to it and why it’s so vital to our lives. Hopefully, I will share some things that make you think about it on a deeper level and prepare you for what God wants to do in your life. One of the first things I want to clarify is that deliverance is about a life giving connection to the Lord and His Holy Spirit in our life. We can say all kinds of prayers, but our freedom, peace and healing are found in His presence. Worship is the first key because we cannot bear any fruit whatsoever without being connected to Him. John 15:5 tells us that we must remain In Christ in order to bear fruit, and apart from Him we can do nothing.Worship connects us to the heart of God and allows us to experience His love. In His presence is fullness of joy. In His presence our desires change. We feel more inspired to want genuine transformation in our life and want to give Him access to our hearts. In His presence He leads us to the well of living water, and it’s in His presence that we receive revelation that has the power to set us free. Worship is the first key to deliverance because it transports us into the holy place where the enemy has no access and we can begin to hear God’s thoughts towards us. Connection to the Holy Spirit is the second key. You cannot get delivered or help others get delivered without depending on the Holy Spirit. You must train yourself to listen.
Deliverance ministry is important to the church because it is a ministry that draws people. People, like sheep, will wander to find the food that sustains them. Heals them. People everywhere need answers to the issues of their life. They need to know, “Why am I stuck?” “Why can’t I seem to make any progress?” “What is withstanding my prayers?”or “How do I get healed from emotional wounding?” All those questions and more are answered through deliverance ministry, yet it’s the least popular and least talked about ministry in many churches. Feel good messages don’t impact people with real change. A watered down gospel doesn’t deliver people from spiritual darkness. And when people don’t have answers for the issues of their life, they are left broken, weak and vulnerable. This makes them restless. They are searching, sometimes for something they don’t even know how to articulate, so they wander from church to church, place to place,looking for the food and deliverance that brings rest to their soul.
I have had some amazing testimonies from people that have had curses broken. For instance, two different women from Africa emailed me to ask me to pray for their pregnancies because they were miscarrying. In the first situation, the doctor had already told her it was too late, the baby was dead. She was believing for a miracle. I had her pray my prayers that renounce all kinds of generational sin and witchcraft. She emailed me later to tell me that when she went back to the doctor the baby was alive and doing well! In the second situation, it was very similar but the miscarriage had not started yet. When she went back to the doctor, a new scan revealed she had not just one, but two LIVE babies in her womb. God gave her double once the sin issue was removed. Recently a friend of mine told me about one of her friends who had contacted her for prayer for her grandbaby that was soon to be born. The mother was about 6 months along and the doctor said the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen and wasn't doing well. I sent her my prayer for life in the womb (a healthy pregnancy) and she passed it along to the grandmother, who shared it with her son and his family. They all prayed it in the third trimester. My friend just got the report back that the baby was born perfectly normal and healthy. Praise God!
Deliverance ministry is heavily dependent upon wisdom from the Holy Spirit. He is our source of wisdom and truth, and he is committed to us because He loves us. We never want to impart a sense of legalism or condemnation through the letter of the law. There is no condemnation for those in Christ. The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ depends on us walking in the Spirit, depending on the Holy Spirit for illumination. But, with all that said, we also cannot bypass the consequences of disobedience. It’s our obedience that allows us to walk in true freedom.
Matthew 15:22-29 tells us that healing is the children's bread. Bread is sustenance. In those days, bread was the staple food. That means it is of primary importance to the life of the believer. In other words, it’s not optional, or shouldn’t be, because you can't be in good health spiritually or emotionally without deliverance being a part of your life. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” People depended on bread for the nourishment of their bodies. It’s required for spiritual health and strength. The spiritual appetite cannot be satisfied without deliverance. It is healing to the soul. It results in inner healing and joy, and strength to God’s people. Without it, people struggle under the enemy’s yoke of heaviness and oppression.
With this sort of ministry, it’s important to pay attention to everything. God will drop clues in our dreams to give us secret information - information we need to pray over and research so that it leads to healing and freedom. I just had a woman a couple weeks ago where she got delivered from constant, disruptive stomach issues and sharp, stabbing pains in her body that had plagued her for years - all because we stopped to research and pray about something God showed her in a dream that went all the way back to her teenage years. It was connected to video games, wizardry and fantasy roleplaying. I researched the name from her dream and then had her renounce everything related to this fantasy character. All her symptoms went away. Before we had a deliverance session, she had no rest. Things were manifesting in her body. Afterwards, she had peace.
God wants to give His people rest. This is the purpose of deliverance, to give us rest from our enemies. Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are struggling and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Mercy is one of the covenant blessings we have with God. Mercy moves Him to action on our behalf, wanting to draw us closer and bring us into a place where our soul is comforted.
Demons create a lack of peace. Look at what what Matthew 12:43-45 says. This is from the Message Bible.
“When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn’t find anyone, it says, ‘I’ll go back to my old haunt.’ On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he’d never gotten cleaned up in the first place. “That’s what this generation is like: You may think you have cleaned out the junk from your lives and gotten ready for God, but you weren’t hospitable to my kingdom message, and now all the devils are moving back in.”
A lack of peace makes it impossible to enter into rest for your soul. Now, listen to this: If a person can’t enter into God’s rest, they also can’t enter into their promised land. In the days of Moses, we read of a generation of Israelites that wandered the wilderness for 40 years, never taking their promised land. Those people were never at rest. They were full of bitterness, complaining, strife and unbelief, and a lot of discouragement They saw the miracles, signs and wonders yet failed to act in faith to confront enemies that stood in their way, preventing them from possessing their promises.They were delivered from Egypt but they never got rid of that poverty mindset that undermined and unraveled their faith. Their minds remained in captivity so they never exercised their dominion and authority. A poverty mindset is one that is characterized by a sense of unworthiness, insecurity, and inferiority. How many of you struggle with those same feelings? Your inner critic tells you, I’m not good enough. I can’t do anything right. I’ll never have a good life. Why even bother believing? My life will never amount to anything. God, I feel like You’ve abandoned me. I guess I don’t measure up. See, It’s a rejection of who you are in Christ, an unbelieving mind.
Hebrews 4:1-11 tells us that there was an entire generation of people that did not take their promised land because they had unbelief. They were too afraid to fight the giants that guarded their spiritual inheritance. They allowed fear and unbelief to keep them stuck in the wilderness. We too, can make the same mistake if we are not intentional when it comes to those things that want to keep us stuck. How are you going to fight the giants - also known as strongman spirits - if you aren’t trained in deliverance or experience it for yourself?
The enemy still uses fear and unbelief today to keep people from receiving their deliverance. God can bring you to the person who is anointed to help you, but He won’t make you stay to receive help if you want to opt out. I have seen it many times where people are right on the brink of a breakthrough, and the enemy will do everything possible to redirect them away from their deliverance.
The thought of deliverance ministry can make people uncomfortable if they have preconceived ideas of what they fear will happen. I find that people who don’t really know God don’t trust Him, and they won’t trust others to help them with their issues. Mostly because they are afraid of embarrassment or insecure about being judged. The word of God in Psalm 23 says our Good Shepherd leads us in paths of righteousness. He brings us to peaceful streams so that we can rest. He wants to give you rest and refreshment in His presence. But you can be sure that truth also makes the enemy uncomfortable. All because the enemy doesn’t want to lose his host. He needs people to cooperate with him so he has a place to stay. But when people make excuses to avoid deliverance, they are actually practicing a form of idolatry, because it’s living by self rule rather than yielding to the authority of God so they can be healed and free. That defiance may present itself like fear or some form of intimidation, maybe it sounds like one of the statements I made a moment ago, but it’s breaking faith with God. It’s the acceptance and agreement with the enemy rather than a profession of faith. Sometimes we tell ourselves, “I’m ok the way I am. I don’t need anyone’s help. I am satisfied with the knowledge I have. I’m satisfied with the amount of God I have.” 1 John 1:8 tells us that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth isn’t in us. But it can also be a stubborn refusal to grow, and God calls that rebellion, which is why He said in Hebrews 4:1-3, these people will not enter my rest.
"Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest…"
Faith and unbelief cause double mindedness. Scripture is very clear in James 1:6-8 and tells us that we become very unstable when our beliefs waiver. A double minded man does not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Another reason why deliverance ministry is important is because it stabilizes our faith.
Deut. 9:4-5 is a reminder that we don’t take our promised land because of our own righteousness, but as a gift of God’s grace. We cannot enter into our promised land in our own strength. It’s not by our own strength, our will, our good works or by striving to make something work just because we will it to. Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. We have to cease from our works so that we can obtain our promises in God‘s grace. And you cannot do that without deliverance, because deliverance produces a yieldedness and submission to God. Every spiritual warfare battle I’ve been in - and I’ve been in a lot - was there to buffet my flesh until I reached a point of yieldedness and surrender. I needed deliverance. We go through hardships and trials and learn to overcome and subdue our flesh so that in a time of testing, we can withstand the tests and not be unapproved or seen as a counterfeit. But a person that has not had deliverance will not be able to pass those tests with demons still attached to their lives. Those spirits are assigned to trip people up and cause spiritual abortion. It’s why people find themselves going through the same type of familiar seasons where you go, “Oh, not this again. This feels so familiar.” It’s because you haven’t passed the test in a previous season. It’s the same reason the Israelites stayed in the wilderness for 40 years.
When a person is not submitted to God’s Holy Spirit, it causes them to be timid and unbelieving. People sometimes don’t want to get involved in deliverance because they’ve not been trained how to walk in their true identity as sons and daughters of God. If you haven’t been trained in this, naturally, you won’t feel confident in taking authority over demonic spirits.
Let me tell you another story. I was teaching a deliverance class and one woman simply asked a question, “Who is Leviathan?” Instantly that demon surfaced and shut her down. She slumped over, non responsive. Like completely catatonic. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t talk, coulndn't move - nothing. After about 30 minutes had passed, I was starting to think, yikes, maybe we should be calling 911, but what are paramedics going to do with Leviathan? This was a spiritual issue. One of the people there asked, “Ok, what do we know about Leviathan?” I said, "Job 41 says He is the king over all the children of pride, and his wall of armor is made up of things like shame, rejection, regret, fear of embarrassment, judgments, unforgiveness, self hatred, and all manner of emotional wounding.” Then I remembered that the night before this woman had shared she had a lot of regret and shame from an abortion she had when she was married, because she was on her way out of the marriage and didn’t feel she could support another child. She blamed her ex husband and herself for the murder of their child. She was emotionally stuck, even though I did pray with her about that the previous night. Leviathan was guarding those raw emotions and that spirit knew she was in a deliverance class where he might lose his host, so he shut her down to protect his house. He was the strongman that needed to be bound. Everyone in the class was shocked and just looked like a deer in the headlights. I looked at them and said, “Hey! This is what you’re here for!” You need to participate too! I told them, "Get in your bibles or on your phone, and start finding scriptures that speak about the blood of Jesus, forgiveness, shame, God’s grace, the love of God... and begin to declare it over this woman." As we did, she was slowly able to respond a little more. We kept telling that spirit, the blood of Jesus has already defeated you. BUT, it knew it had legal grounds to stay because she hadn’t forgiven herself or her ex. I told her she had to forgive her ex or this spirit wouldn’t leave. She started wailing. All the pain, all the torment starting coming to the surface. Little by little, we got her to say she forgave him. Then we told her to forgive herself. She had great difficulty because of the shame and regret. See, emotions are not just emotions. They are spirits with an assignment. We had her break the agreement with the spirit of grief. People in the room were still declaring the word of God over her. Some were singing the scriptures. One person blew the shofar over her. She was finally able to comply, but then she wailed and she wailed, as grief kept pouring out of her. Every time, we had her renounce the agreements she had made with those spirits (shame, rejection, anger, resentment, guilt, self-condemnation and self-hatred, unworthiness) and we commanded them to leave. She got the victory and she came out of that free and healed from the emotional pain she had lived with for many years.
That class learned a lot that night. They saw the process and felt empowered by what they learned. Deliverance helps build your confidence. Aren’t you tired of the enemy getting one over on you and your family? What if that had been your loved one? Are you going to leave them in that state? Or do you want to know how to help them? Aren’t you tired of spirits blocking your prayers and robbing you of the blessings God has for you? It is time to take back your life and take possession of your land!
--End of part one. See the next post for part two.
